Patients’ and clinicians’ views on the appropriate use of safety-netting advice in consultations—an interview study from Sweden

BACKGROUND: A promising approach to manage clinical uncertainty and thereby reduce the risk of preventable diagnostic harm is to use safety-netting advice (ie, communicating structured information to patients about when and where to reconsult healthcare). AIM: To explore clinicians’ and patients’ views on when and how safety-netting can be successfully applied in primary-care and emergency-care settings. DESIGN AND SETTING: An exploratory qualitative research design; we performed focus groups and interviews in a Swedish setting. PARTICIPANTS: Nine physicians working in primary or emergency care and eight patients or caregivers participated. The participants were an ethnically homogeneous group, originating from Western European or Australian backgrounds. METHOD: Data were analysed inductively, using the framework method. The results are reported according to the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research guidelines for reporting qualitative research. RESULTS: In order to manage diagnostic uncertainty using safety-netting, clinicians and patients emphasised the need to understand the preconditions for the consultation (ie, the healthcare setting, the patient’s capacity and existing power imbalance). Furthermore, participants raised the importance of establishing a mutual understanding regarding the patient’s perspective and the severity of the situation before engaging in safety-netting advice. CONCLUSION: The establishment of a shared mental model between clinician and patient of the preconditions for the clinical encounter is a vital factor affecting how safety-netting advice is communicated and received and its ability to support patients in problem detection and planning after the visit. We suggest that successful safety-netting can be viewed as a team activity, where the clinician and patient collaborate in monitoring how the patient’s condition progresses after the care visit. Furthermore, our findings suggest that to be successfully implemented, safety-netting advice needs to be tailored to the clinical context in general and to the patient–clinician encounter in particular.